It Was 35 Years Ago Today: The Release Of The Greatest 7" Picture Sleeve EVER!

In June of 1979, there I was only three months into my teen years, still not quite sure what to make of the hormones coursing through my body, to say nothing of the three chest hairs that had recently sprouted (on my chest, thankfully). Other than that, I was the same kid who enjoyed collecting baseball cards, playing whiffle ball in the backyard, and listening to my Kiss records.

And then my parents took me to Kmart, which wasn't all that different from the hundreds of other times, but this time, there was something new and exciting waiting for me at the end of the music aisle, lodged firmly atop the end-cap containing that week's Top 40 singles.

Truth be told, I already owned the single, but the copy I had bought at the local hardware store a few weeks earlier had come with a generic sleeve. Needless to say, upon seeing this one, I immediately had to have it.

Years later, I would find myself living in L.A. and bumping into the very woman whose knockout looks had graced the picture sleeve of The Knack's "My Sharona" at an open house in the Hollywood Hills. I thought about running home and grabbing my picture sleeve so that she could autograph it, but thought better of it until my girlfriend at the time blurted out, "You should run home and grab the picture sleeve you have framed in the living room, but that you take into the bathroom with you all the time, so that she can sign it!" within earshot of Sharona herself.